[Bobsvainbabblings]

Sorry I didn’t answer sooner.

I will make the same point I made before, You are arguing about this with the wrong person. I didn’t set this standard, God did if you believe Paul’s writings are inspired.

If I was to speculate as to why God set this standard, He wants us to live in family units when possible.

The future leaders would come from these familys. Wise in God’s ways

In both Testaments. Leave your family and cleave to your wife and become one flesh.

I am old enough to see the wisdom of that. BVB

[Cronos]

if you read Paul's words carefully, 1 Tim 3 says

1 Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full[a] respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)

Note:
1. Paul was an overseer
2. Paul was single
3. Paul says the overseer should at the most have one wife not MUST have a wife.

If you say MUST, then that contradicts points 1 and 2. God set this standard -- as is seen in the Old Testament. The prophet Jeremiah, as part of his prophetic ministry, was forbidden to take a wife: "The word of the Lord came to me: ‘You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place’" (Jer. 16:1–2). Of course, this is different from Catholic priestly celibacy, which is not divinely ordained; yet the divine precedent still supports the legitimacy of the human institution.